Activities of Albanian sympathisers KPD-ML in DDR

Herbert Polifka of Roter Morgan reports on the activities of the DDR section of pro-Albanian party KPD-ML, as detailed in State Security Service records released by the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. These were met with spying and infiltration from the authorities, who eventually arrested eight of their leaders.

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Approximately 20 instructors and 30 couriers were used as 'liaison people' between the FRG and West Berlin Sections and the GDR Section. 8% of their gross pay was established as membership dues.

The activities within the GDR centred on the recruitment of supporters and sympathizers. The attention of the public was attracted by actions, which were always spectacular in the GDR. From 1976, numerous leaflets were distributed, public buildings were painted with slogans, posters were pasted on walls, lampposts etc. Their own, separate, 'GDR edition' of the Roter Morgen was widely distributed. The communists' voice was distributed in the GDR either by stuffing it into mailboxes or by putting it in public places (such as phone booths, bus stops, railway stations, movie theatres, hospitals) or distributing it directly in factories.

This newspaper thus became the first regularly-appearing opposition periodical within the GDR. In the course of an interrogation, a woman involved said: 'By distributing the different issues of the Roter Morgen, I personally saw a possibility of influencing the working people in a propagandist manner, to gather and prepare the forces for a conscious transformation of society in the GDR.' ('Interrogation Record, dated January 5, 1982').

Small distribution activities of homemade leaflets were planned and realized by the cells independently. In this way, they intervened in the political events of the day. At the same time, they promoted Radio Tirana, the only socialist radio station.

Tobias Wunschik established that the GDR Section comrades developed considerable activities. For instance, the East Berlin activists put out a total of 25 different leaflets in 547 different distribution actions in ten months of 1979.

Activities were also carried out in the factories. Besides propaganda actions (such as leaflet distribution, slogan painting, etc.), trade union activities were also carried out. Working within the FDGB [GDR Federation of Free German Trade Unions] offered good possibilities for drawing attention to social injustices and for mobilizing colleagues for small actions. The leitmotiv for this was 'the fight for tea-water in the factory', as Lenin called it.

On the one hand, new sympathizers could be won. On the other hand, there was the danger of betrayal within this unified trade union which was very closely bound to the SED.

The Roter Morgen was very helpful for the communists' illegal activities. This newspaper, printed on thin paper, was illegally smuggled into the GDR. (At least, partial editions of the Roter Morgen were printed in the GDR too, as comrades reported.)

Here is an excerpt from one of many hundreds of letters to the editorial staff of the Roter Morgen:

'Dresden, September 9, 1981.

Dear KPD comrades! Your newspaper came to us through thousands of hands. What we could read in black and white made our hearts swell because few of these convincing facts come to light here. (...) This state has nothing in common with democracy, since the bigwigs' parasitism and clique economy is unbearable for the ordinary worker. Therefore we feel a rapport with the KPD comrades and ask you to carry on as before so that many people in the GDR (who show interest in it) will read the truth about the state leadership and find it confirmed.

With friendly greetings, Koenig family, Dresden.'

For the 'Cottbus' cell alone, 3,000 copies of the 'GDR edition' of the Roter Morgen, several inner-party materials, a homemade printing apparatus for printing up to 50 stencils, a homemade [Rollapparat], a typewriter, one 35 mm camera as well as printer's ink and ink pads were smuggled in with the aid of a handful of couriers until 1979. The D 359 transit train (Munich - Nuernberg - Berlin) was especially preferred for taking along materials. In such cases, the leaflets were delivered in bundles by throwing them out of the train traveling past a certain point, an action which had been precisely planned beforehand. When the materials were brought in by car, the transport was mostly carried out with the aid of a specially-prepared fire extinguisher in the courier's vehicle.

The Party thought that such method of delivery of materials 'was almost 100% safe' ['Information by Department II of the Main Administration for Surveillance, dated February 1, 1982, on a personal conversation with Horst-Dieter Koch, member of the Central Committee of the KPD and the official responsible for the GDR Section'].

Furthermore, illegal communist materials were smuggled in from Poland and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Albanian literature such as works of comrade Enver Hoxha were placed at their disposal by the comrades of the Albanian embassy.

These books were not only used for study but were also sent to consciously selected people. The 'Magdeburg' cell in which I was active was a pioneer in this field. For instance, it distributed 200 copies of 'The Khrushchevites', 250 copies of 'Imperialism and the Revolution', about 60 copies of 'Reflections on China' (volumes 1 and 2), thousands of pamphlets on the fight against the modern revisionists, etc. Also, important foreign language documents were sent to different revisionist states (such as Poland, Rumania, Soviet Union, Cuba, Hungary, Bulgaria).

Internationalism rated very highly: comrades of the GDR Section also distributed the Czerwony Sztandar [Red Flag], organ of the illegal Communist Party of Poland. This newspaper, also printed on thin paper, was both sent into Poland and given to Polish citizens who worked in the GDR. At various Magdeburg construction sites, the Czerwony Sztandar was found over and over again. Donations were illegally brought into Poland to support the striking colleagues there.

Russian language publications were left in newsstands of the Soviet army.

Hmmmm... are you sure it was not some titoist thugs doing all the spying.. Islamil? You probably have a Xoxhaic quote handy to shake off the unjust allegations of the treacherous DDR policemen.

What are you even talking about? The GDR and Yugoslavia at this point both considered each other to be socialist states. Honecker (like Ulbricht before him) praised Tito as a communist and vice-versa.

Albania held that both countries were capitalist and that it was the goal of the East German proletariat to overthrow the ruling Socialist Unity Party and return to the path of Lenin and Stalin, just as it was the goal of the proletarians of Yugoslavia to overthrow the League of Communists.